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brightknightie) wrote2022-10-22 04:18 pm
brightknightie) wrote2022-10-22 04:18 pm
Entry tags:
HLH_Shortcuts "Dear Author" letter '22
Dear ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hlh_shortcuts author,
Thank you for sharing your HL love and creativity this year! This post is essentially an extra-large version of the official fest sign-up form, with additions and digressions.
1. TYPE/PEOPLE:
Gen and canon 'ships are my favorites. I most enjoy Duncan, Tessa, Randi, Darius, Charlie, Angie, Richie, Anne, Michelle, Cierdwyn, and one-shot mortal characters whose relationships with our protagonists are (or should be) bigger than their screen time. Duncan/Tessa is my own OTP, but if you feel romance-y, I'm also open to whatever and whomever honors our characters in the various times of their lives; I do prefer monogamy. (No objections to Joe, Connor, or Methos! Just not specifically requesting them as leads (they usually get tons of representation).)
2. LIKES:
A good guy doing good is always a win, especially when the right thing is not the easy thing. I adore when a story feels like stepping into canon's reality or a fork in canon's road. I love major character death stories with a focus on those left behind. Character-appropriate faith is a treat. I treasure when Duncan leans into the right side of history as it happens, not with anachronism, but with only his deep, abiding convictions of what is right in any era... and what he's learned from times gone wrong. I enjoy missing scenes and day-in-the-life; I also like big adventures and unfolding mysteries. I most love the first two seasons, when there are more mortal than immortal characters and the plot formula is not yet set -- not because stories should always be set in those seasons! but mainly because, for me, the immortality fantasy is a metaphor that works most richly in those circumstances. Outliving our loved ones and being outlived by them; outliving our time and adjusting to new times, or not living to see new times; these are what happens to us out here in the real world; the fantasy mechanism just supersizes it for emphasis.
3. DISLIKES:
I don't enjoy the Horsemen, Ahriman, Cassandra, or Kenny. I despair of Duncan portrayed as childish. I'd rather not read pro-evil, non-con or dub-con, NC-17, most things commonly called kinks, mentor/student, tropes like mpreg, or hostility to sincere faith.
If writing crossovers brings you joy, how about:
In case you find that you'd like yet more chattering about what I love in HL, you might try last year's HLH_Shortcuts letter, which was more of an essay, or my "fanfic likes & dislikes" tag, which includes all my previous "Dear Author" letters for all fic events of all kinds, all of which include HL if it was eligible, and many of which include specific HL scenario requests.
Again, thank you very much! Whatever you love best in HL, celebrate that, and I'm sure to enjoy it! ♥
hlh_shortcuts author,Thank you for sharing your HL love and creativity this year! This post is essentially an extra-large version of the official fest sign-up form, with additions and digressions.
I'd like to read:
1. TYPE/PEOPLE:
Gen and canon 'ships are my favorites. I most enjoy Duncan, Tessa, Randi, Darius, Charlie, Angie, Richie, Anne, Michelle, Cierdwyn, and one-shot mortal characters whose relationships with our protagonists are (or should be) bigger than their screen time. Duncan/Tessa is my own OTP, but if you feel romance-y, I'm also open to whatever and whomever honors our characters in the various times of their lives; I do prefer monogamy. (No objections to Joe, Connor, or Methos! Just not specifically requesting them as leads (they usually get tons of representation).)
2. LIKES:
A good guy doing good is always a win, especially when the right thing is not the easy thing. I adore when a story feels like stepping into canon's reality or a fork in canon's road. I love major character death stories with a focus on those left behind. Character-appropriate faith is a treat. I treasure when Duncan leans into the right side of history as it happens, not with anachronism, but with only his deep, abiding convictions of what is right in any era... and what he's learned from times gone wrong. I enjoy missing scenes and day-in-the-life; I also like big adventures and unfolding mysteries. I most love the first two seasons, when there are more mortal than immortal characters and the plot formula is not yet set -- not because stories should always be set in those seasons! but mainly because, for me, the immortality fantasy is a metaphor that works most richly in those circumstances. Outliving our loved ones and being outlived by them; outliving our time and adjusting to new times, or not living to see new times; these are what happens to us out here in the real world; the fantasy mechanism just supersizes it for emphasis.
3. DISLIKES:
I don't enjoy the Horsemen, Ahriman, Cassandra, or Kenny. I despair of Duncan portrayed as childish. I'd rather not read pro-evil, non-con or dub-con, NC-17, most things commonly called kinks, mentor/student, tropes like mpreg, or hostility to sincere faith.
Crossovers:
If writing crossovers brings you joy, how about:
- Young Blades or Forever Knight
- Mercy Street, Call the Midwife, or Grantchester
- Rurouni Kenshin
- Most long-19th-century British (and some American) literature, especially anything by George Eliot, Jane Austen, or Wilkie Collins; also, I recently reread Dracula, and a crossover with its good guys (not with the Count, please) could be delightful
- Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin stories
- the new Quantum Leap
- If you're an MCU person, how about Duncan and Wanda and grief? (A friend's shoulder to cry on could have prevented Multiverse of Madness, and I'm still kinda mad that none of the surviving Avengers thought to provide that. Looking at you, Clint.)
- My latest story obsession is Journey to the West, especially as retold by Overly Sarcastic Productions. (I discovered it via OSP, then listened to a podcast version, then read the abridged translation, and now I'm a quarter of the way through the four-volume unabridged translation.) No ordinary JttW/HL crossover could work under the fest's very sensible "HL universe" rule, obviously! But I would never bet against Monkey, and Duncan could have read the Chinese original centuries ago (surely Methos did), while the monolingual English world had to wait for the 1980s for the first unabridged translation. Maybe an HL story in which the hundred-chapter-novel is itself a plot element of some kind...?
In case you find that you'd like yet more chattering about what I love in HL, you might try last year's HLH_Shortcuts letter, which was more of an essay, or my "fanfic likes & dislikes" tag, which includes all my previous "Dear Author" letters for all fic events of all kinds, all of which include HL if it was eligible, and many of which include specific HL scenario requests.
Again, thank you very much! Whatever you love best in HL, celebrate that, and I'm sure to enjoy it! ♥